The Last
Days of Summer is set in a Texas prairie town. It tells the story of Jasper
Curtis, a convicted felon released from Huntsville prison. He returns home
after serving 10 years for a heinous crime to a town where he isn’t wanted.
His sister Lizzie
agrees to take him in. She lives with her two daughters, teenager Katie and
11-year-old Joanne. Lizzie's marriage collapsed shortly after Jasper was arrested, and as the town reacts with hostility, she gets a visit from Reverend Gordon,
asking ‘You sure you know who you’re lettin into your home?’ ‘Where else he
gonna go?’ she replies. Lizzie has no idea if Jasper is the brother she grew up
loving or a monster.
Prairie
dust, heat, hate and small town mentality combine with the time-bomb of Jasper,
a man with a shady sexual desire and past living in an isolated location with two
attractive young girls and a sister who can’t turn him away.
There is a slow
pace for most of the story, giving the sense that nothing and everything is
happening. This is counterbalanced by Ronan’s use of present tense narrative
which is told from four points of view’ Jasper, Lizzie, Katie and Joanne. Short,
snappy sentences add a sense of immediacy as if dark clouds of danger are constantly
hovering. This novel is gripping and atmospheric, although if you’re looking
for a fast-paced page turner, this isn’t it.
From the
outset, Jasper, the felon, hasn’t given up on God, whilst Lizzie, the good
woman, has, and these types of contradictions set the reader up for a messy and
complicated landscape.
This novel
is not for the fainthearted and is uncomfortable reading at times. On one
occasion when Jasper is alone with Joanne, he recalls the paedophile he met in
prison and states he understands how young girls got him ticking.
Another time he meets a young mother and wonders if he sucked her tits would he
get milk. The barbaric description of his original crime is difficult too, as
is the incident when he skins a rabbit alive. Each beg the question if these
elements exist for shock value or whether we’ve become watered down in our
fictional approach to evil.
Certainly, Ronan rackets up the anxiety in a variety of ways, with
secrets and half-truths about what Jasper really did all those years before.
The threat of violent outbursts from him and others in the town, coupled with
Jasper’s deviant introspection and heightened sexual desire towards women,
including his nieces, keeps the reader on edge. Unusually, there are no chapter
breaks in this novel, adding a form of relentlessness in how the story is told.
It should be exhausting, but rather it propels the reader forward.
All the
characters in this story are flawed, with the exception of young Joanne, who
serves as a vacuum of innocence, befriending Jasper when others loathe him.
Each member of the town is trapped in much the same way as Jasper was
incarcerated - no one is leaving. Hate, danger, fear and small town bias serve to
keep all the inhabitants as potential victims of themselves and the insidious
locked in element becomes the backdrop for revenge.
The main
character, Jasper, has two strands to his personality. One the reader can
relate to when he shows his ability to care and wishes the rest of the world could
see him the way Joanne does. ‘I want to feel human again,’ he tells Lizzie, ‘I
want to feel close enough to normal.’
This draws on the reader’s empathy, but the gulf between this and his
darker side is often contradictory, which partially dilutes the character’s
credibility.
The unhurried
pace of the story as it builds to a finale leaves you with high expectations of
what’s to come, like a heavy rain shower after hours of overhanging darkness.
The finale is violent and tough, but lacks the poetic, atmospheric, descriptive
style of the earlier part of the novel, and overall, it didn’t give the dividend
the previous pages dictated.
A very credible debut with an unusual and fresh approach. This author takes risks and there is
a lot to admire, including some terrific writing.
